Readers’ Rides - Editorialisms

A lot of you have rides that you don’t think are feature-worthy, but they are!

I can’t believe how time flies. It feels like just yesterday when the team was brainstorming ideas about how we wanted to do an issue that would showcase cars that we normally wouldn’t feature. Homebuilt vehicles, cars that didn’t necessarily have life savings poured into them — that’s when the Readers’ Rides issue was born three short years ago.

Truth be told, at first we were hesitant about the idea. Would an issue like this sell? Would we get enough submissions? How would readers react? Even with all the uncertainty, we decided to go ahead with it because there’s no better way for us to give back to our readers and subscribers who don’t necessarily have big-budget modifications done to their cars.

Our risk paid off, though; the Readers’ Rides issue has sold extremely well for the past two years running, but more importantly, the quality of car submissions has been topnotch. A lot of you have rides that you don’t think are feature-worthy, but they are! Dennis Mereil, the owner of the NSX cover car, sent us an email explaining how he’s been a loyal reader and subscriber for a while and would like us to consider his car for this Readers’ Rides issue. We were blown away by the quality of the NSX and surprised he hadn’t submitted it earlier.

Actually, the quality of the vehicles has been getting better every year, which makes our job even tougher by having to narrow down the list and select the cars to be featured.

If you feel you were absolutely robbed after not being featured in this issue, then by all means write me an email (no death threats, please), but chances are you didn’t follow the rules for supplying the proper spec sheet or high-resolution images. We had so many great submissions with poor quality or improperly sized images, and we simply couldn’t include those cars.

Last but not least, if you didn’t get the chance to submit your car for this issue, then you don’t have to wait until next year. We still have our monthly Readers’ Rides page in the back of the book where your vehicle can be featured. Just send the correct info to readersrides@modified.com.

Most concept car drives take place in the smooth safety of a secluded proving ground or a closed racetrack but we drive the hand-finished Audi E-Tron GT concept on the cratered streets of downtown L.A.

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